Before signing off on another successful Garlic Festival, it’s
worth reflecting on the true value of our wonderful signature
event
After 28 years, it’s simple to let another incredibly successful Garlic Festival slip into the mirage of flame-up images, parasol twirls and applause echoing from the Garlic Idol competition.
Ah, it’s over … but let’s remember the central message of the festival before we roll merrily along toward next July: Community matters.
More than any other single thing, the Garlic Festival has defined our community. It’s not about the food, really, it’s about who we are, the pride we take in our city, our willingness to pitch in for the common good, and our ability to set aside the petty differences that engulf our daily lives and see the big picture.
Most community festivals die lonely deaths in short order, the victims of super-sized egos and lack of commitment.
Not so in Gilroy. Civic malaise, a common disease in modern life, has not infected the Garlic Festival. Even after 28 years, there is enthusiasm, a will to make the festival better and a very honest relationship between Gilroy’s signature event and the community that makes it happen.
Working at the festival gives a true sense of belonging, a connection to community that is all too often lacking in our all-too-busy world.
The Garlic Festival gives Gilroyans a sense of cohesion and pride. How many times have you travelled somewhere, told someone where you were from and heard, “Isn’t that where they have the Garlic Festival?”
You bet it is.
One of the best things you can do for someone new to our community – or a young person – is to get them hooked up with the festival for a volunteer shift. Whether it’s emptying trash cans for the basketball team, pouring wine coolers for the Gilroy Foundation, checking IDs for the Chamber of Commerce or assembling peppersteak sandwiches for a local church, making a contribution is making a connection.
Fragmentation in a growing city on the fringe of a huge, tech-savvy metropolis is inevitable. The Garlic Festival provides a unique opportunity to make a societal connection that aids in breaking down that fragmentation. Distinctions between people melt when there’s a common goal and work being done to achieve it.
That fosters cooperation. Though the Garlic Festival is not a panacea, it is a force to be reckoned with. It’s an annual reminder that we’re all in this together. It’s a testament to what working together can accomplish. It’s a statement that our community cares enough to do its very best.
Community matters, and the Garlic Festival fosters it. The rest – the economic benefits for hundreds of groups, the notoriety, the three days of fun each July – is, well, olive oil on the garlic bulb.
